Transcript

POHIVA TU'IONETOA: The Budget has to be distributed to the members one month before the House and the Committee of Public Accounts and Finance have been working on that for the last month. They even hired consultants to work on the Budget and also they were having up to 20 meetings this last month, asking for the CEO of each department and those who are responsible for drafting and submitting their budgets. They had some recommendations to add but we have to discuss them, whether the House will accept the adjustments to the Budget. I believe, from the perspective of the members, it will depend on the magnitude of the changes. We may think almost a re-draft of the Budget but the responsibility, we believe from the government side, is to review and have a look whether the economic assumptions are correct and also the legality of the items.

KORO VAKA'UTA: What are maybe the highlights of it or the main points? How much is the Budget worth in its totality?

PT: The Budget is about 659 million [pa'anga]. The theme of the Budget is to rebuild after the cyclone stronger so we can withstand any cyclone. The focus of the Budget is the reconstruction after Cyclone Gita. We have our normal priorities like the education, health and so forth and some development projects that will be decided like climate change projects and so forth. But the impact of the cyclone, that's the main focus. We have a programme for the rebuild of the education infrastructure, energy, some of the health issues, water sanitation. We have a programme for reconstruction on those sectors. We have the assistance of Australia and New Zealand and also from other donors. Really our finance of those programmes will be dependant on those donor partners.

KV: That 659 million pa'anga, how much of that is foreign donor?

PT: I believe it is 200 and something and then 300 from inside the country.

KV: You mentioned that Thursday is the deadline and you are going to work but what seems to be the main sticking points?

PT: Those issues that have been recommended after the accounts committee meeting but I don't think we will have any problems. We have already set the target of the government and the members of parliament and the Speaker of the House has already said we should finish the Budget by Thursday.

MPs are travelling to Ha'apai over the weekend for the Agricultural Show which is why the deadline of Thursday was implemented.